Forgotten Space Program

[Cydonian Monk]

6 hours ago, monophonic said:

So, could you just switch to any of those from the tracking station? Should you choose to drop the role play and just do that. Because, if not but you have instead managed to rig them up so you have to approach them with a ship before you can switch to them, I want to ask you how.

Yes and no. I'm playing with Remote Tech. Most of these ships were launched without Remote Tech, so until a Kerbal is sent up to pull open an antenna or otherwise control the ship, these satellites and stations are just dead in the void.  So in that respect they're not like asteroids or other "unowned" objects, more like regular debris that can't be controlled. (Though had I wanted to I could've changed them all to unowned objects, like asteroids... and then I wouldn't be able to switch directly to them. I've just found that to be more trouble than it's worth in the past.)

Also worth noting that everything except flags from my previous saves _are_ debris. That was one thing I changed. (Making flags debris results in Bad Things.)

[RocketSquid]

So, how would the game manage closed circuit LS in an unsupervised ship? Are there really kerbals on/near laythe?

[Cydonian Monk]

9 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

So, how would the game manage closed circuit LS in an unsupervised ship? Are there really kerbals on/near laythe?

 

On February 5, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Cydonian Monk said:

I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any ongoing operations or activities without the approval of [REDACTED].

 

The curious thing about closed-cycle in TAC LS is that it's only possible with Water and Oxygen short of writing your own configuration for parts. Provided you are producing more of a resource than you're consuming when the ship was last loaded, then you're good to go. (Though there seems to be a bug with electric charge...)

Even without scrubbers for recycling, Laythe has access to both water and oxygen, which can be extracted directly from the environment (there's already an air filter part for extracting O2 from air intakes... logical to assume there should be a water filter as well). Clearly a reaction for producing food could be devised, much like there's a reaction for producing oxygen from carbon-dioxide..... Greenhouses? Maybe.

A few kerbals could live off of a large cache of supplies for many years though.

There's also the catch that TAC doesn't track ships that have never been "loaded" into physics (as was the case with Thomlock and the Hawk 3-2, though I think I disabled TAC during that reentry mission anyway). 

And of course there's save editing for dramatic effect.

 

All I can promise is that any vessels presently at Laythe got there through legitimate means. (The only craft in this save that got anywhere though F12-related cheating is a jet airplane on Duna with a Mainsail strapped to its back. That's from a very, very old test save... and something these kerbals will never likely encounter due to its remoteness and obscurity.)

[Madrias]

I'd love to see them discover that airplane, personally.  Would be hilarious to see their reactions to something that couldn't physically have gotten there itself.

[RocketSquid]

17 minutes ago, Madrias said:

I'd love to see them discover that airplane, personally.  Would be hilarious to see their reactions to something that couldn't physically have gotten there itself.

You're forgetting launch vehicles. To quote King Arthur, "It could have been carried."

[mattssheep4]

18 hours ago, monophonic said:

So, could you just switch to any of those from the tracking station? Should you choose to drop the role play and just do that. Because, if not but you have instead managed to rig them up so you have to approach them with a ship before you can switch to them, I want to ask you how.

If I understand what you are asking correctly, you can change vessels to type 'SpaceObject' in the persistence file, which gives the ship the asteroid icon. Then you would have to get near with a ship before learning what it is and being able to switch to it. Edit: you can still switch to the craft though.

Edited February 23, 2016 by mattssheep4

[Madrias]

1 hour ago, RocketSquid said:

You're forgetting launch vehicles. To quote King Arthur, "It could have been carried."

Yeah, I suppose I forgot the potential for a launch vehicle.

[Nukeknockout]

15 minutes ago, Madrias said:

Yeah, I suppose I forgot the potential for a launch vehicle.

The question there is "But why would they build a launch vehicle for this?"

 

Oh wait, it's KSP. Never mind.

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, mattssheep4 said:

If I understand what you are asking correctly, you can change vessels to type 'SpaceObject' in the persistence file, which gives the ship the asteroid icon. Then you would have to get near with a ship before learning what it is and being able to switch to it. Edit: you can still switch to the craft though.

The key here is in the Vessel's "Discovery" node. A state other than -1 prevents you from switching to it. (I think this node could be used in the future Multiplayer mode to establish ownership by userID.... Though there's likely a better solution in mind.) The problem is that gaining "control" of the ship afterwards gets a bit tricky, as it then behaves like an asteroid. So to avoid having to edit each craft in the persistence when I "reclaim" it, I decided to just leave it as a "-1". You also have to make sure you set the Lifetime to Infinity or the game will purge it.

[KAL 9000]

Moar please?

[Cydonian Monk]

Just now, KAL 9000 said:

Moar please?

In a few hours. Had an update I could've posted this morning except for lack of time (need to upload the screenshots). Shifting focus to The Mün this week, and will hopefully have the first of the Silicon Deep-Space Vehicles making its test flight there by the weekend.

[TopHeavy11]

OMG just started reading. This is my respone: REPREPREPRPEREPREPREPREPREPREP!

[Cydonian Monk]

A Phosphorescent Return to The Mün

Training for the Mün trials of the Silicon DSH were well underway at the space center, but that wasn't what was generating the most buzz. Instead everyone was focused on a new project: Phosphorous. Phosphorous was the test bed for building landers. Mün landers, Minmus landers, Vall landers, all kinds of them.  They had to run before they could sprint, so first they needed to prove such technology was possible. At first this meant small, robotic landers operating without real-time supervision from Mission Control.

The first of these probes was to be sent to The Mün so the landing software coupd be debugged live with only a minimal delay. Once the programmers were confident in the code larger landers and advanced surface operation would be tested, followed by Descent/Ascent vehicles intended for short-duration visits by kerbals. All of this was required to be completed before the first Silicon DSH/DSV left for Jool, so the teams were operating on a bit of a tight schedule.

The first Phosphorous was a small and simple affair. Little more than an engine, fuel (ROUND-8 Represent!), and a slew of different science experiments, its true purpose was to field-test the "landingcurve.ks" kOS script. And to not crash. 

The resulting probe and transmunar stage were small enough to fit atop an LV-05 Cantata. Large enough to not be small, small enough to not be in charge. 

 

 

This was the first probe sent beyond low-Kerbin orbit in quite some time, and there was some uncertainty as to the communications quality. For power reasons the probe was lacking anything stronger than a Communicatron 16, so it would require a relay back to Kerbin for any commands. 

The teams were pleasantly surprised when the probe remained in contact for the entire transfer and orbital capture. The funds used for the Neon build-out were proving well spent. 

 

Against all recommendations and conventions the craft was sent into a prograde Münar orbit. Both the transfer stage and the lander were intended to crash (or not crash) after less than one orbit, so intercepting any of the many retro-orbiting satellites was considered unlikely. Plus, should the capture burn fail to occur, the debris would shoot out into the Solar System and bot be a hazard. (A fate many considered to NOT be a failure.)

To everyone's delight the craft safely completed its capture burn and entered into a somewhat inclined prograde orbit.

 

With farside communications opened and stable, the techs transferred the latest version of their landing software to the craft (a few quick revisions had been made while P-1 was in transit). A dangerous prospect, as a communication loss mid-transfer could spell Doom. Or maybe Quake. (An old space hacker long chained to a desk cried out when they saw multiple instances of duplicate code. "Functions! Functions! No more than 20 lines each!" These objections fell on earless kerbals.)

With no specific landing site in mind the kerbals decided to take their chances. The order to run the landing code was sent, and that was that. The descent burn started with the transmunar stage, to properly deorbit it. Following its short burn the probe was on its own.

 

Things were going well during the first phases of the descent. As luck would have it the P-1 was dropping nicely into a pair of craters. Nobody was quite sure how the little probe would react to landing on an incline, but it was too late to do anything about it.

 

 

 

The descent had been going perfectly so far. And then the engine cut out unexpectedly when the craft was still 20 meters above the surface. The landing software reported back to Kerbin that it had "detected landing", and was done. A quick-thinking operator fired the craft's engines and armed its SAS, which was enough to save the craft, but....

 

Sideways. 

A software review would later find the problem to be obvious ("until 20 > alt:radar"), but it was too late for the little Phosphorous 1. Minor damage, a few panels busted, but all science data was safe.

Science data that seemed misplaced. Despite coming down in the Highland Craters, the data captured was for the Mün's Midlands. Strange.

Even stranger was that the World's First rep was all but ignored when he showed up with the "Yay! You landed on The Mün!" plaque. Instead of the usual celebration party, everyone was busy preparing the next craft in the Phosphorous series.... 

The party would have to wait.

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[chris206]

im only on page 6 but had to comment on this amazing series, this is so much fun to read it makes me feel like im binge watching a favorite tv show. Seriously this is better than most TV

[Cydonian Monk]

8 hours ago, TopHeavy11 said:

OMG just started reading. This is my respone: REPREPREPRPEREPREPREPREPREPREP!

 

1 hour ago, chris206 said:

im only on page 6 but had to comment on this amazing series, this is so much fun to read it makes me feel like im binge watching a favorite tv show. Seriously this is better than most TV

 

Thank you, to both of you.  

[TopHeavy11]

Do you have a mod list? I NEED to play like this! Follow-up question: kOS. How do you write whole scripts instead of just singular commands?

Edited February 24, 2016 by TopHeavy11
Typo alert!

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, TopHeavy11 said:

Do you have a mod list? I NEED to play like this! Follow-up question: kOS. How do you write whole scripts instead of just singular commands?

There's a mod list in the first post.... though using all of them at once will require forcing open-GL mode or using a 64-bit version (ie, Linux). Best to just go easy on pat mods until 1.1 comes out, really. As for kOS, this is your friend: http://ksp-kos.github.io/KOS_DOC/ Create files with "edit filename.ks." 

[Angelo Kerman]

Loving this series! Definitely have to give kOS a try as well.

[Kerbalstar]

Quick question, how do you edit out Kerbals from your ships? Thanks.

 

[Cydonian Monk]

Just now, kerbalstar said:

Quick question, how do you edit out Kerbals from your ships? Thanks.

 

In the persistence file search for a line like this: "crew = Jebediah Kerman". Obviously replace Jebediah with the kerbal name in question. Delete that line.

You'll also need to update the status in the kerbal's entry, otherwise they'll be MIA. (Don't recall offhand the exact values for status, sorry. Should be easy enough to figure out.)

[Kerbalstar]

1 hour ago, Cydonian Monk said:

In the persistence file search for a line like this: "crew = Jebediah Kerman". Obviously replace Jebediah with the kerbal name in question. Delete that line.

You'll also need to update the status in the kerbal's entry, otherwise they'll be MIA. (Don't recall offhand the exact values for status, sorry. Should be easy enough to figure out.)

Thanks!

[waterlubber]

Edit it to available, iirc

[Kerbalstar]

18 hours ago, waterlubber said:

Edit it to available, iirc

Thanks.

[KAL 9000]

Moar please?

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

49 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Moar please?

It's coming soon. Don't fret